


a home of broken unloved things

by kuro49



Series: jason rare pair challenge [6]
Category: DCU, Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Episode: s02e02 Rose, Love Bites, M/M, Marking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-12-01 22:31:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20919944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: Jason is set in his typecast. He is the dirty little secret everyone has but nobody keeps.





	a home of broken unloved things

**Author's Note:**

> set some time in the 3 months gap between ep 1 and ep 2 because i watch tv at a glacial pace, featuring implied jaydick, and some squint to see brujay and brudick. i promise it is happier than the title would have you convinced.

Jason takes an overnight bus and goes to Wyoming.

This isn't his home but neither is Titans Tower when the last conversation he’s had went like this:

"Headed out?" 

"What's it to _ you_." Jason never reacts well to the accusatory tone in Dick's voice, and he doesn't react well this time either. "I'm not going where I'm unwanted if that's what you're worried about."

He is not lying even if he is not quite telling the truth. Because the full truth in its entirety is that Jason has no idea if he’d be welcomed or not but he figures Dawn is too polite to turn him away and Hank is too whipped for Dawn for anything otherwise. 

"You're not unwan—"

"Bruce doesn't want me in Gotham, that's fine." It's not, not really, it makes him want to scream on his bad days. And on his good ones, he just doesn’t think about it at all. He is short of snapping when he bites out. "You don't need to say it for me to take a hint, Dick. I _ get _ it."

Dick doesn’t know why he can’t seem to get through to him, and the frustration shows. He doesn’t know. And that in itself is the entire truth here between them. 

For how smart the first Robin is supposed to be, Jason wonders how the guy continues to manage to say all the wrong things at all the wrong times, doing all the wrong things in all the wrong ways. But Jason knows he will forgive him too, just like he will with Bruce too. 

Dick's got a complicated expression on his face, and it is an expression Jason can recall in vivid details on Bruce’s face, one made during those early days when he brought him home to the manor, in those small moments when Bruce thought he wouldn’t see. 

Jason just scoffs, hiking his backpack up higher on his shoulder before he is walking out the door.

Wyoming is colder, and Jason isn’t sure he likes it at all.

But when Dawn opens the door, he thinks he can stay for a bit longer even if the weather isn’t to his taste. Because she doesn’t look surprised to see him, even if Hank who is coming down the hall from behind her definitely does. Her smile is soft, is knowing, is worrying, and everything he doesn’t want her to feel for him because she shouldn't be concerned for him like that.

Jason has to physically turn away from it, and because she is so much kinder than he has any right to deserve, she just ushers him in and leaves him with Hank. 

“Kid,” Hank starts, taking Jason’s backpack from him even when he doesn’t need to. Jason doesn’t scowl too deeply at that word alone because he can recognize Hank’s intentions and he refuses to fall for a trick this blatant. “Dick knows you’re here?”

They are inside a guest bedroom on the first floor, the bed is probably too soft and the plaid comforter is probably even softer. 

"As long as I'm out of his hair, Dick really doesn't care."

Hank sighs out loud, and there is no malice, just maybe resignation on a fight long fought and lost. "The guy cares, he's just— Okay, fine. Dick’s an ass but he cares, if he didn't, he wouldn't be trying at all."

Jason agrees but he doesn’t want to admit to that. He has never made it easy for anyone, least of all himself. He goes back to busying himself with tugging the two extra set of t-shirt and jeans from his backpack while Hank takes a seat on the bed. 

"So how long are you staying?"

"I haven't decided." A one shoulder shrug, a pause, and Jason turns around so he can look at Hank with all the severity of his nineteen years on this wretched earth. “Did you want me to go?”

“Didn’t think you’d care even if I did.” Hank stops picking at the loose threads at the edge of the comforter, expression going serious despite the lilt to his voice to keep this conversation even, just that bit casual until neither one of them can pretend otherwise.

“Not really, but.” Jason doesn’t let it go to that point. Hank doesn’t deserve this, and least of all Dawn. He leaves his hands on top of the tee he’s taken out and smooths it over. “You and Dawn are good people. So only if you really want to. If you want me out of your hair too, just say the word. I get it.”

Hank lets out a huff of air, his head shaking, and it’s a scoff this time. 

“Don’t be stupid, kid.”

Jason bites down on the inside of his cheeks until he tastes that sharp copper tang, it hurts. But it keeps the dumb smile from stretching all the way across his face. 

On their farm, Hank drags him up at the crack of dawn.

"Rise and shine."

"Fuck you." Jason rasps out, still groggy with exhaustion as the cold brisk air of the room hits his cheeks, all warm from sleep and imprinted with the creases of the pillow.

Hank repeats after himself, reaching down and ripping the blankets from where Jason tries to cling to those last wisps of warmth. "Rise and fucking shine, kid." 

Jason blinks open one eye, and his vision is filled with Hank's too wide smirk.

The bastard is enjoying this way too much. Jason grumbles all the way to the bathroom where he washes up, the water is freezing and he just wants to crawl back into bed. But he figures this isn’t a vacation, much less one where he gets to sleep in. He came to this place for a reason, it’s probably a good time as any other to try to figure out what he will find here.

“Be a little nicer, he’s a guest.” 

Jason is coming down the hallway when he hears Dawn’s voice. 

It’s soft, but that’s just how she speaks. He knows she isn’t trying to hide a thing from him, and maybe that’s why he has no idea how to interact with her. Someone without any ulterior motives is not someone Jason has much experience with.

“He’s an extra pair of hands that this place could use.” 

Hank’s reply is casual, but this, at least, he's a little bit more familiar with. Jason knows this, not in these exact terms but he can be used, he can be of use. And Jason knows how to react to that, making his steps heard as he strides into the kitchen where he finds them both by the stove top.

“I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours and you’re already putting me to work.” 

“Breakfast first.” Dawn tells him, nodding at the small jug of milk sitting on the kitchen counter in a silent request for him to help.

And this is easy, following through with her request. Setting the milk and pulling the little cup of sugar from the far end of the table to where they have set up three cups of coffee in one corner.

“Your cooking?” Jason asks, glancing from the full plate of breakfast Dawn sets down in front of him before she sits down on the other side of the kitchen table with her own. 

Hank laughs, and it’s the loud booming full-bellied laugh that fills the room even from where he is standing by the sink and running the tap for the pan to soak. 

Dawn shakes her head, nods at Hank crossing the kitchen to sit down at the table with his plate piled high with food. It gets Jason eyeing the toast slathered in melted butter on his own plate with interest, a gaze that Hank interprets as suspicion because the guy is kicking at the leg of Jason's chair from around a corner of the table.

“Eat up kid,” Hank takes a bite of his own eggs and continues in between chewing his mouthful, “if I wanted to poison you, I wouldn’t waste good food on you first.”

Jason digs in. 

He ends the third day with his hands scuffed dirty with dirt, his freckles in sharp contrast with the bright red hue of his sunburn, and his hair soaked in sweat, curling even worse than it usually would. The grueling manual work runs every single thought out of his head, keeps his hands busy and focused on just that.

It’s good, and that’s always around the same time when it’s just over due for everything to go wrong. Because Jason can’t help but ruin all the nice things that come rare to him. 

"You can pretend I'm him if you can't get it up." 

It's probably self-sabotaging if Jason is being honest with himself. But when has honesty ever done him any favours? 

"I can get it up just fine." 

"You can still pretend I'm him." Jason shrugs, pulling his hoodie off and over his head, tossing it to the armchair beside them. 

Hank pauses at that, eyes dark and focused and all on Jason when he asks. "And what's the point in that?"

Jason bites down on his bottom lip, gives the man a smirk. "Makes me feel like I'm home again."

It's not entirely a lie and maybe that just makes it worse. 

"Kid," Hank lets out, it's a fair share of disbelief and pity, "that's messed up even for you."

"I'm not afraid of being who I am, and if I'm Dick Grayson's replacement. It's still better than anything I've had to be before that." Jason's smirk doesn't waver, and none of it hurts himself when he lays it all out so simply for Hank. "You don't have to look so sorry for me." Jason snorts at the expression on Hank's face, it's a nice change to all the other looks he's been given but. "I don't lose a thing that I'm not ready to lose at the drop of a hat."

Jason's tee is thin, his skin feels warm to the touch from the roaring fireplace behind them. It feels out of place to all the places where he's dropped down to his knees out of his own volition. 

"You're not losing anything." Hank tells him with something like kindness.

Jason smiles, and there is no malice to this either because he doesn't expect Hank to understand but it's sweet that he tries at all.

"Says the guy with it all."

A farm in Wyoming with the girl of his dreams.

But here is Hank Hall fucking around with a kid probably at least ten years his junior on their couch. There is nothing in his veins and he's clean but it doesn’t feel that way with every rough drag of his hands across the span of what Jason gives over to him. It feels like he is making black marks against pale skin, fingerprints tracking a path of tell tale bruises while his mouth is connecting the dots between the freckles scattered across his shoulder to kiss his way up to Jason’s throat.

The kid bares his throat to him, and there is a flash of confusion in those baby blues wondering why Hank hasn’t sunk his teeth into the soft column to draw blood.

“Not all.” Hank replies, feels the dig of Jason's nails biting into his forearm as he arches back to let Hank at his neck.

Jason lets out the softest little noises with every scrape of teeth, leaning into the press of Hank's mouth and inhaling sharply at the way Hank sucks another hickey against his throat. Hank feels every tremor running down Jason's spine like its his own, neither one of them are loud, keeping all it contained in a neat little bubble like Dawn doesn't already know.

There are no dreams remaining. It's harsh where the truth fits, in every little fracture of people who left unwillingly and all those who did more than willingly. 

She isn't even mad and maybe that makes it worse.

It wasn't like this with Dick. But Dick is different. He always was because he was theirs.

Jason is—

Hank is under no delusions that the kid could be his, he would be hard pressed to believe that the kid can be anyone's. 

Dawn doesn’t stop him, not when he turns over in their bed, not when he gets out from beneath their covers, and definitely not when he closes their bedroom door behind him. Maybe that is where the dream falls through to show every bare bone of reality holding their world up around them.

Hank sits in the living room long enough, nightmares still on his mind of his brother's body going cold and stiff in his arms and no one to blame, of his team's blood all over him and no justice to be gained, of Dawn unmoving in her hospital bed and nothing he can do as he holds her hand. It is helplessness gripping him by the throat, pinning him to relive each horror one by one and then all over again.

When Jason steps into his line of vision, Hank breathes out on a shudder.

"You 'kay, man?" The kid is in a borrowed gray tee, oversized to the point where it nearly hides the hem of his gym shorts. Jason is holding a glass of ice cold water, condensation dripping from his palm, his bare feet silent as he pads from his room to the kitchen and back around to stand in front of Hank and still have him not noticing a single thing.

"I'm—" Hank scrubs a hand down his face. "I'm alright."

"You sure look it, man." Jason answers, dripping in sarcasm, snuffing his grin with another sip of water, mouth coming away from the rim of the glass all shiny and wet. His swallow is hard, the bob of his throat slow.

Hank sits back until he is sprawling, his voice firm with conviction, control coming back even if it is rough all around the edges. "I'll be just fine."

Jason levels him with an even gaze, nodding in that patronizing way before he is handing off his water to Hank. Fingers brushing deliberately, cool against the heat.

And maybe there are very many less than subtle signs all along the way, but it still hits Hank like a freight train when Jason asks.

"So, you wanna fuck?"

Jason's head cocking to one side, grin bright and baby blue eyes brighter. 

Hank takes him up on the offer because how do you say _ no_.

Jason asks to be taken from behind, his face buried between the cushions of the sofa while his fingers clutch at the armrest until his knuckles go bone white and he is moaning loud enough to be heard as Hank slowly pushes inside of him. 

Hank doesn’t go slow, listening to Jason for once when he is pleading for him to keep going, faster and deeper said in between every stumble of his tongue between his open mouth while he sobs into the cushions. 

Hank fucks into him, snapping his hips over and over again as his cock buries deeper and deeper. Jason’s body accommodating the full fit of his cock better and better on every thrust until he can press all the way inside of him. He doesn't ask why Jason wants it in this position, but Hank can put two and two together, he isn't all just muscles and brawn, he has an inkling that it allows Jason to think of anyone else to be holding him like he's loved.

“You’re just like Dick.” Hank grunts out, an observation he can’t help but let out when he is seeing the parallel between the two of them so clearly.

“I’m nothing like that _ dick_.” Jason gasps, his knees almost slipping from underneath him at a particularly hard thrust that seems to reach a whole new depth inside of him.

“Why do you think Titans 1.0 was ever even a thing?” Hank asks him. “Your dick of an older brother figured running away from daddybats would be a good idea.”

In between every little _ ah_'s being knocked out of the confines of his chest, Jason whines out. “Is it?”

"Kid, playing dumb is not a good look on you." Hank has one hand curled around the sharp cant of Jason's hip, his mouth finding a soft pale spot just along the nape of his neck to leave his mark. "You know exactly how the first run of playing a team of hero turned out.”

Jason chokes out a faint laugh, and it's a damn sweet sound that turns near syrupy when it breaks into a low moan. 

"So much for learning from B's golden boy when I’m here anyways.” Jason sighs out, a touch bit wistful. He leans back into the way Hank's mouth is working him over, drawing blood to the surface of his skin to bloom the brightest love bite. 

Hank isn't surprised, knows the depths of Dick's own pit of insecurities before they came to an end. “Like I said, you guys are cut from the same cloth. Daddybats only ever breeds one kind of sidekick.”

Jason just laughs, the sound dissolving into more breathless noises.

Hank fully anticipates the kid to come murmuring Bruce Wayne, or at the very least Dick Grayson's name. Hank _ gets _ it if he does. It's always more than a little messed up, and he is not about to judge when he is fucking his exe's little brother while his girlfriend is in the next room. They don't have to be good people to do good things. 

It is left forgotten most days but human decency still exists even in a man like him.

Hank has a hand wrapped around Jason's cock, getting him off while Hank grinds into the soft pliant body. When Jason comes undone, he comes without a name on his tongue, just a whimper on the part of that plush mouth.

Hank has an arm around Jason, keeping him up while his legs nearly gives out from under him. Hank fucks him through his orgasm, thighs shaking while his lashes fan across his cheeks.

When Jason finally blinks his glassy eyes open again, it is to the sensation of Hank spilling into the condom, buried all the way inside of him.

"Oh fuuuck, man," Jason lets out, still catching his breath. "That was good."

And Hank can't help himself, he laughs.

Jason's been in Wyoming for all of three days, wakes up in the early morning of his fourth somehow tucked against Hank's side in the guest bedroom he has been sleeping in.

He is disoriented, sleep still keeping his brain in a hazy state, bits and pieces of last night coming to mind. And Jason thinks he would usually be a little bit self conscious or even embarrassed but he can only blink ever so slowly because Hank is still here. The guy hasn't even pulled away from where he has one arm looped around Jason's waist. 

And just to make sure, in case this is all just a hyper realistic fantasy, Jason lifts the covers from on top of him and finds himself buck naked while Hank only has a pair of pyjama bottoms on. His face goes a tad bit pink but just that little bit.

Jason sits up, pulling away from the warmth and feels it in his ass. Oh yeah, no mistake about that, they definitely had sex.

“Go home, kid.” Hank tells him between a yawn, shuffling up on the bed so he can lean against the headboard.

"Not even a good morning, and you're already kicking me out.” Jason wills the flush to go away and he is not even upset. It's good while it lasted.

Jason knows, he is set in his typecast. He is the dirty little secret everyone has but nobody keeps.

These mornings are always going to be the kind of mornings he'll wake up to.

“You need to stop putting words in my mouth, and listen for a turn.” Hank mutters with just barely any heat because he can see the dejection in the drop of those shoulders alone even if Jason holds strong on all the other fronts. He drags his phone from the bedside table, unlocks it, and clicks into his call history log before turning the phone to Jason so he can actually _see_.

Jason blinks.

The kid isn't stupid, and Hank knows that, he also knows it would barely take anytime at all to put together every anonymous call in his call history coming in damn near clockwork to be Batman.

Jason's mouth parts on an _ oh_.

And Hank has to snort at the conclusion Jason comes to because the only reason why Bruce Wayne isn't here is because the tracking devices on Jason indicate that he never once left the property.

“I can’t stay.” Jason admits, softly.

"If I let you stay one more night, I'm going to be up to my throat in bats.” Hank tells him, he doesn't mention that Dawn's phone has been blowing up in messages from Dick. 

“You’re going to miss me?” Jason bites down on his bottom lip, and it's criminal the way the edge of his teeth sinks into what Hank can only consider as a pout.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Hank settles for dropping his phone back on the bedside table.

“Tell me anyway.”

Hank leans over, presses his lips to the crown of Jason’s head. 

“I’ll miss you.” Jason murmurs, like it's some kind of secret.

The kid is a bleeding heart, and Hank isn't immune no matter how hard he tries. “This isn’t a fucking halfway house, Jason. You can come back anytime.”

Jason breaks out into a grin, ducking his head forward as his hand comes up to tug through the tangled curls of his hair. “Y’know that I’m going to hold you to that.”

It's Hank's turn to go just a tinge pink when he catches sight of the bright blossoming bruises all across the nape of Jason's neck. 

“Didn't expect any less, kid.”

Titans Tower is unchanged when he returns.

And Dick stands as that same imposing figure of the self-assigned teacher. Jason wants to say he is learning but really, they just fight each other at every turn. It feels like those early days with Bruce, except he is starting afresh again, just when he thought he's gotten through to him, Jason gets tossed over to the man's second-in-command. 

Jason lifts a hand in greeting, and he already misses the brisk winds of Wyoming and the stench of Hank's farm.

"Jason." Dick starts, and that complicated expression is back. Jason braces himself for whatever lecture that is going to come, except. It doesn't. Dick surprises him when he tries for a smile that isn't soft at the corners, unlike Bruce's when he thinks Jason isn't looking, but Dick is trying when he says. "It's been quiet without you."

It's all baby steps, and if it takes them two steps forward and then three steps back, at least they are moving at all.

Or, maybe Jason is willing to going easy on the golden boy because Dick has that charm whether he tries or not. Jason is content with giving credit where credit's due. Because Jason finds himself shaking his head with a grin pulling wide across his face, that same cock-sure attitude back and at 'em like he's never even left.

"You could've just said you missed me, bro."

He laughs at the expression Dick makes at him, waves his pseudo-brother by bat off as he heads off to his own room, backpack slung over one shoulder.

The motion draws Dick's eyes.

Dick's also been in Hank's bed enough times to recognize the man's handiwork. And Dick thinks he hates himself just that much more when he cannot be sure who he is more jealous of because as Jason turns, the back of his neck is littered all over with blatant love bites.

He remembers his own throat bared to Hank, the way he would mark his way from his jaw all the way down the soft column of his neck to bite at the collarbones, sucking bruises right where the collar of his shirts would almost cover if he's mindful of it throughout the day. Dick can bodily recall the way the hickies would go all the way down to his chest and then even lower still, covering him from the jut of his hips to the inside of his thighs. 

It has him wondering what Jason might look like underneath his clothes.

Instead, Dick calls out to Jason and buries all of those thoughts deep enough that even Bruce would be proud of how deep his repression runs.

"It's good to have you back."

**Author's Note:**

> that amazing hank line of "daddybats only breeds one kind of sidekick" is from rogues8, who always says the best things :DDDDD


End file.
